A PAEDOPHILE from Burbage has been sentenced to almost 13 years in prison for a range of sexual offences on children and the rape of a woman.

Keith Ellis, of Hanover Court, Azalea Drive, was jailed for 12 years and nine months by a judge at Leicester Crown Court.

The 50-year-old will serve seven years for rape and indecent assault of the woman and five years and nine months for seven indecent assaults on young girls and inciting one of them to commit gross indecency.

All of the crimes took place in Hinckley on dates between September 1986 and October 2000.

Ellis also had an indefinite sexual offences prevention order placed on him, which restricts his contact with all children.

He was in front of Leicester Crown Court in October last year facing the allegations involving sexual acts with children. Despite originally denying all charges when they were first read at Hinckley Magistrates Court, he later admitted his guilt.

Just two months later in December 2011, he was back in front of the same court for the charges relating to the woman, who was aged about 19 at the time the offences were committed between September 18 1986 and September 19 1988.

Ellis denied both charges.

His victim cried in the witness box while giving evidence on the first day of the trial. It took a jury comprising five men and seven women just under an hour to find him guilty of the rape and indecent assault, which took place at separate addresses in Hinckley.